Ambernath: Yet again thousands of trees were set afire in Ambarnath on Friday. Earlier, the hills of Mangrul village had been stripped bare; and, now, the trees have been set on fire on Khuntavli hill. Sadly, this time, even saplings were destroyed in the blaze. The fire brigade was called to douse the fire, but its cause is yet to be determined.
Shiv Sena Member of Parliament Shrikant Shinde had planted thousands of saplings with other party workers in July in Mangrul village. Shortly thereafter, these trees have been reduced to ashes by unknown arsonists. In the earlier incident in Mangrul village, thousands of trees spread over 80 acres had been destroyed.
On Monday, Shinde had led a morcha to the office of the chief conservator of forests (territorial) in Thane and party workers had vandalised the forest office, demanding stern action against those involved. Three days later, another blaze has wiped out thousands of trees in Khuntavli.
An upset Shinde reacted, saying, “However many fires are set, we will ensure that the jungle still thrives.” Shinde, along with volunteers, had recently planted 70,000 trees under the state government’s initiative to plant 50 crore trees in three years. In July last year, more than 15,000 people had planted one lakh trees in Mangrul village in Malanggad.
Five months later, a fire destroyed 20,000 trees. At that time, forest officials had succeeded in salvaging many trees, but on November 14, this year, there was another fire, which left two barren hills in its wake, with almost 70 per cent of the trees destroyed.